Preemptive Retaliation

I don’t get it when people and magazines do a Top of the Year list when the year isn’t even done yet. Well, yeah I guess I do – December is a time for reflection, for looking back on what you’ve experienced and achieved. January is for looking forward. What’s happening in the year ahead? Lets be optimistic in January.

Nah, not for me.

GAMES

Celeste is hands down my game of the year. Playing this game again, to full and utter completion, was a transformative act for me. But I can’t really put my finger down as to how? I think it’s the zen-like meditation that I fell into when playing it, the constant repeat of failure, the eventual inevitable success that was only inevitable because I kept going and kept trying. It’s a feeling that I’ve never had with a videogame before – maybe Elden Ring comes close.

I’ve written enough about this game, and I look forward to writing more about it. Not only my game of the year but one of my favourite games of all time.

I’ve had a word with myself about 1000xRESIST, and whether it’s a visual novel or a walking sim or whatever, it doesn’t matter. It’s an incredible story told in an utterly unique way. It’s been a while where I’ve had a game occupy my thoughts so completely, where I would log on every night to play a chapter and then stop when that chapter ends. I eked it out, sat down to it like it was a book or TV show, and spent the day digesting it. The twists and turns continually surprised and enthralled me. A good candidate for one of those games I wish I could erase from my mind and so all over again.

Mouthwashing was a surprise for me too, with a tight, claustrophobic story that got under my fingernails. The image of Curly bandaged and helpless, with a mad roving eye, will stick with me, as well as the brilliant honesty of Swansea’s monologue. This game is linked in my mind with The Last of Us which I played this year too – showing the decline of so called humanity in desperate situations. Both games are also extremely well written, with great characters and stories (though The Last of Us was spoiled by the equally excellent show). Though The Last of Us was a more fun game to play, they’re both excellent examinations into the human psyche and made me genuinely uncomfortable with what was going on.

And, of course, I can’t not talk about Baldur’s Gate 3, the game I started last year but carried me well into March. I cried at the end of this game. I was so invested in the relationships between the characters that, at it’s conclusion, I freely sobbed at where some of them ended up. It’s a game I really, really want to jump into again (and did for a while this year, in an ill-fated multiplayer campaign) but keep finding I can’t. How can I undo the choices my Druid made? How can I form new relationships, when the one I had was perfect? I don’t know. Maybe one day when I’m old and have forgotten it all.

Is that five? Can this count as a top five? Sure. Let’s go with that. I could do some honourable mentions, but it’d be a long list. I had an embarrassment of good games this year. Long may it continue.

BOOKS

I don’t think I had such a strong reaction to any book this year than I did with Fragile Animals by Genevieve Jagger. It’s a first novel, and it shows, but that’s the only point of criticism I can think of in this astounding achievement. The writing is florid but grounded, the characters are loveable but conflicting, and it does an incredible job of filling you with creeping dread. Every page marches you forward to something dark and destructive, and every word carries you along the way, bringing you in for the ride. I loved this book in a way that I wasn’t jealous of. It was just great.

Never Let Me Go comes linked in with Klara and the Sun, both by Kazuo Ishiguro., as books that taught me how narrative can flow so easily. Both of these books were a pleasure to read (despite having fairly bleak endings) and I found myself finishing them before I realised it. They both sit warmly inside me, turning over with questions about life and value, and what we’re willing to ignore for happiness. Creatively, the rambling first person narrative finally gave me permission to do the same in my writing. To be honest with turns of phrases and misunderstandings, to not know things and never learn different. Ishiguro’s writing is not one I can hold myself against, as I’d likely go mad with the pressure of trying to match it, but it’s something to shoot for. Shoot for the moon and if you miss you’ll land amongst the stars etc.

Speaking of rambling, personal narratives, I got myself completely lost in Paul Auster’s 4, 3, 2, 1, and again it just gave me more permission that writing and can be free and easy and conversational and gutting all at the same time. I was swept away by the little stories in this book as I compared each version of Ferguson with the other, and my heart ached when they went through turmoil. It falters at the ending, though there was no way it couldn’t, and the ride there was breath-taking. Auster is a writers writer, and I spend most of my time reading his novels impressed by the trickery he uses, the techniques in the words that get me to look left while he goes right. A superb book.

I wasn’t going to run through a top five for books and leave it at four, but after reviewing my list and seeing Boy Friends by Michael Pederson I can’t not include it. At first this was a way of indulging in my Scott Hutchinson obsession, a way of staying close to the dead musician, but I was wrapped up by Pederson’s story, his relationships with the boys in his life and what that meant to him. For me, the beauty in this book is the brutal, unabashed, unironic honesty. It made me think about my friends and what I would say if they were gone, and how of course I don’t say these things to them now because that’s not how Men work. And I still likely won’t because AWKWARD.

OTHER MEDIA

I don’t have a list of films or TV shows I watched. All of that has dropped off this year in favour of reading and writing. I don’t mind that. I used to be a cinephile, and now I’m not. In a few years I’ll stop reading as much and watch more films, or I’ll play fewer videogames, or maybe write less.

I listened to a lot of Los Campesinos!‘s new album All Hell. I love this band like a brother. All of the bands of my youth were older than me, and I was piggybacking off their experience to understand their songs. I’ve grown up with Los Camp!, I’ve experienced life’s milestones alongside them, and every album they release is a dark reflection of where I am – my troubles, hopes and fears, etc. I saw them this year too, and after the gig hung around the venue until midnight where I sheepishly got their autographs on a picture Lily drew for me. Ahhh this band! I’m going to listen to them right now.

Onward to the next year! What will I consume? What will consume me?